The story was published in the monthly Nový život. Several weeks later I received a letter typed on letterhead belonging to “Brothers in T-Shirts” and signed by someone named Mojžíš (Moses). Jiří Trnka had apparently liked my story and was wondering if we could meet.
To me, this was the highest honor. The famous artist and designer wanted to meet me; perhaps he even wanted to do something with my story.
Jiří Trnka received me in his film studio. Marvelous puppets were hanging all over the place, most from A Midsummer Night’s Dream along with the Good Soldier Švejk and Prince Bajaja. In the background on a little table was the scenery, and the animator was manipulating a puppet.
Trnka was sitting on a high chair (or perhaps my respect for him placed him so high in my memory) and said the basic idea of my story had intrigued him. I had said, figuratively and urgently, that no robot could take the place of a person. To have a machine supply the care for a child symbolized our contemporary degeneracy in a powerful way. “Many people even believe that machines will be our salvation, but I look upon all this with fear. You know,” he continued, “today everyone is busy with politics, but this is greater than they are, it’s greater than all systems. It threatens to deprive us of our humanity. I sense this fear in your story. We entrust everything into the hands of machines. They will think for us, watch over us, amuse us; they’ll write books and draw. And this fiddly job?” He pointed at the animator. “A machine will be able to do it a hundred times faster and better. But what’s the result? We do it to express our feelings, our fears, or ourselves. What or whom will a machine express?”
He asked me to try to turn the story (originally only two pages) into a screenplay.
I worked on it as well as I could, took it to the director, listened to his comments, and continued writing. Then Mr. Trnka sent word that the screenplay was suitable, and he would see what he could do with it. Several months went by, and I stopped thinking about my Machine and, as far as I remember, I was certain Mr. Trnka had too. Then one day I received a letter from the Brothers in T-Shirts inviting me to a screening of The Cybernetic Grandmother. As far as the details go, not much was left of my screenplay. The story had been improved with a lot of new ideas and was longer than I thought it would be, but not only had Mr. Trnka preserved the basic idea; he had developed it in a wonderful way.
That was the last time I saw him alive. He asked me if I was satisfied and if I was bothered by the fact he’d changed the title. I said the film was wonderful and compelling, and as far as the title was concerned, he was the primary author, and the only thing that was important was that the title satisfy him.
Our son was born not long after, on a chilly January day. I wasn’t used to drinking to anything, not even the birth of a son, but when he was brought to me in the maternity ward, my joy knew no bounds. At home waited not only all our relatives but also an old-fashioned white wicker baby carriage, a gift from the Vaculíks, who told us their three sons had spent their first years in this friendly abode.
*
Shortly after my reports from eastern Slovakia were published in book form, a screenwriter from Barrandov Studios, Ivan Urban, wrote to tell me he found them fascinating and asked if I’d like to write a film narrative about those exotic surroundings.
At first I thought he had in mind a documentary film, but documentaries did not enjoy much popularity at the time, and Mr. Urban explained that a “suspenseful” story would be much more effective.
We got together many times. He was a friendly and pleasant man, a talented dramaturge, a witty screenwriter, and a wonderful storyteller. He told me the story of Hitchcock’s Psycho in such great detail and so suggestively that when I saw the film years later I was almost disappointed.
I gradually came up with a story about a land surveyor whose beloved dies in a concentration camp. He cannot remain in the region where he met her, or even continue his usual work, so he leaves for the other end of the republic, the lowlands along the Laborec River. The people here live in unimaginable poverty. He works at various jobs, lives in different lodgings, drinks, surveys land for a hospital, and sees how floods often destroy the already miserable crops. He decides to design a series of dams to prevent the flooding. I wove into the story the balladic fortunes of the local residents and postwar life in a dilapidated country.
Over two months I put together the first version. The following month we composed the second version, but this one Urban gave back to me too. Apparently some of the characters were too indistinct, the establishment of the co-op was too drastic, and the way the countryside developed wasn’t emphasized enough.
My screenplay wasn’t approved even the third time around, and I decided to give up my efforts at film and try to write a novel instead.
I announced my intention at work, and my still nonexistent novel made its way into the publishing schedule. I had until September 30, 1962, to turn it in.
My editing work, however, demanded a lot of attention. I had no time for any sort of concentrated writing and no quiet environment in which to work. When I came home in the evening, I looked forward to playing with little Michal and hearing from my wife or mother-in-law what progress he’d made.
I usually wrote late at night for two or three hours and went to bed after midnight. Unfortunately, the windows of our Smíchov flat looked out on the street, where heavy trucks started rumbling through at five in the morning. The house seemed to shake to its very foundations, and I couldn’t fall back asleep. I went around in a continual state of fatigue.
I was convinced at the end of spring that I’d never write the novel under these conditions and went to share my fears with my supervisor. To my great surprise, he was happy to offer me an unpaid vacation (not until later did I realize he was only too glad to get me out of the office for a while). He just wanted to know if I could finish the novel on time. I thought this would be no problem under such wonderful circumstances.
The hero of my novel was still the land surveyor, and even though I had no intention of writing much about his job, my conscience bothered me because I hadn’t the slightest idea about land surveying. I happened to mention this to a colleague, who laughed and said her husband, if he could write, certainly wouldn’t have such problems. He was a land surveyor. If I had any questions, all I had to do was ask.
Her husband was indeed willing to help me out and said he would be surveying somewhere near Ledeč nad Sázavou on June 1. I could join him if I wanted. At least I would see with my own eyes how simple the job was.
My unpaid vacation was to begin on June 1, and I thought it would be a wonderful way to start work on my book.
He piled me into his all-terrain vehicle along with his theodolite, his surveying poles, and his assistant, and on the way kept assuring me his job was nothing mysterious. Kafka certainly knew no more about land surveying than that it required assistants, and look what a wonderful novel he had written. We arrived at a meadow, where he unpacked his equipment and we could begin. It was a beautiful sunny late spring day, and the meadow was in furious bloom. The air was filled with scents and clouds of pollen. He set up his theodolite and sent his assistant where he needed her, then he called me over to his side. I suddenly began to sneeze. I sneezed almost constantly the whole time, but I pretended that it was my usual expression of enthusiastic interest — they of course couldn’t keep themselves from laughing. After he’d explained how the measuring apparatuses worked, he sent me with a surveyor’s pole to a corner of the plot. I tried to stop sneezing just for a moment so the pole I was holding would stop wobbling. The friendly land surveyor waved to me with his hands to take a few steps back. I heard something that sounded like cracking rotten wood, but it was too late: I plunged into a cesspool up to my waist, still clutching the surveyor’s pole.